Rat Boy NME Magazine

Born February 21st 1996, Rat Boy plays on the reckless youth image, shown perfectly in this image from NME's Ones to Watch list 2016. A few particular things to note in the picture are the fire, the swearing on the hoodie and the alcohol to the left of the picture. The sort of familiarity of the pub/club setting attracts his audience (of a similar age to him). This kind of mise en scene feeds into Rat Boy's music videos and his genre more widely. The candid style of the photo continues on from the scruffy/DIY nature of his music I mentioned in the previous blog post.

Rat Boy DIY Magazine

"The Class of 2016 is led by Rat Boy, a peerless Essex troubadour who does everything on his terms. From graffiti’ed artwork to game-changing singles, he’s thrown himself into the spotlight. We get to know Jordan Cardy as he readies himself for 2016 domination."

Rat Boy creates quite a scruffy/DIY image of himself both practically in how he makes his music but also in his overall brand itself. This particular magazine cover captures that with the way he's styled against the clean white background.

Most notably, the graffiti style writing of 'Rat Boy' itself sort of summarises his overall image and is used repeatedly used in publications as well as his own artwork.

The generally quite relaxed appearance conforms to the overall conventions of the indie rock/hip hop genre.

Rat Boy

 Jordan Cardy is an English musician who performs under the stage name of Rat Boy. He began writing songs in his spare time before releasing them on SoundCloud (his first release being 'The Mixtape'). Following this, he was signed to Parlophone records in early 2015. As well as this, 'The Mixtape' received further support from being featured in NME magazine and broadcasted on number of radio stations such as BBC Radio 1.

 

He received further recognition in being added to the BBC Sound Of 2016 Longlist and was also nominated for the Best New Artist 2016 by NME magazine. In April 2017, his song "Knock Knock Knock" was sampled on Kendrick Lamar's song "Lust" from his fourth studio album titled Damn.

 

Rat Boy's music itself is a mixture of several styles, namely hip hop and indie rock. His approach it noted as being "DIY" as he generally records and produces his own tracks whilst also creating all his own album art.

 

Genre Videos

As I've began to look at a number of artists, they all seem to fall into the Indie Rock genre overlapped with British Hip Hop. Looking further into the genres themselves, I've noticed a trend in the overall style of music videos. Most simply I would describe a lot of the filming and editing "home style" linked to the lower production value. This links to the genres themselves, particularly INDIE rock. The videos themselves still conform to a number of the features of Goodwin's theory as well as the editing style of conventional music videos (transitions for example).

Also, a number of the music videos see performance and narrative integrated where sometimes the artist will even play a character. Personally, I'd love to explore more the narrative side of the videos and possibly incorporate performance within that.

Possible Cutaway Ideas

Whilst on holiday, I visited a number of cities so decided to film a few clips on my Iphone focusing on landscape. I changed my mind about having the same shot composition, and instead vary it as it seemed more interesting (especially if eventually used in sequence). 

I roughly edited a few clips on iMovie, speeding them up and removing the audio entirely. In two of the clips I used a fish eye lens attached to the back of my phone. I think maybe using iPhone footage cut between maybe higher quality footage would fit the "home style" video I'be began to look at. 

Beginning to Think About Location

 Beginning to think about possible locations, I would love to take advantage of the more urban landscapes we could easily access in London. One place in particular is the terraces on top of the National Theatre on the Southbank which are open to the public and have amazing views of the street below and the Thames. From the style of music videos I've been leaning towards, most simply less Pop and more Indie, I think exploring a contrast between rural and urban areas would look really interesting. Also, focusing more on narrative would rely on a character view point or story to follow which I think would stand out against quite vast/harsh backdrops. Naturally, in exploring more narrative and performance solely by the character themselves I think a focus on people in relation to location would be interesting. Therefore, whilst on holiday, I'm thinking of filming lots of short clips of different streets (using the same shot composition) to possibly use later as cutaways in between the main narrative.

 



Initial Genre/Artist Ideas